


And Bridges Burned

by dracoqueen22



Series: Once Burned [2]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Season/Series 02, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 00:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starscream contacts Ratchet again, and a choice must be made. (Sequel to Line in the Sand)</p><p>Written for the tf-rare-pairings Fall Challenge. Inspired by "Criminal," Britney Spears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Bridges Burned

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in season two, post episode Armada and in a fuzzy timeline somewhen thereafter.

Ratchet stares at the blinking indicator in the corner of the screen for longer than is rational, debating the pros and cons of attending to it.  
  
At present, he is alone. Optimus is here, recharging and still defragging from his unwanted stay on the Nemesis, but the others are out. Yet, Ratchet would ask none of them for advice. This is something he must handle himself.  
  
He has tried to ignore the indicator for the last three Earth hours. But the more he tries to concentrate on debugging the ground bridge, the more his processor wanders back to that blinking indicator.  
  
To delete or to receive? That is the question indeed.  
  
Curiosity compels him. He ignores the part of him that claims it could be anything else.  
  
He opens up the message, already knowing who has sent it. The contents are the surprise. No explanation. No demand. Just a set of coordinates and a time, an hour from now. Helpfully around the time that Bumblebee would be returning. Ratchet knows he can rely on the scout not to answer any questions.  
  
Bulkhead would put a loud protest, threatening to bring Prime into it if he has to. Arcee would be suspicious, demand that she accompany him. And the longer Ratchet keeps this from Prime the better, though part of him seethes with guilt.  
  
This, however, is something Ratchet must take care of himself. If he plans to attend to it at all.  
  
He debates, fingers rapping on the edge of the keyboard. He deletes the message because there's no need for it to linger in the system when he already knows what it says.  
  
His vows as a medic clash with his vows as an Autobot. Both rant and rage with his personal morals. Another equally loud portion of his processor reminds him of the stirring heat, the strut-melting pleasure, all blinded by the overwhelming sense of _wrong_.  
  
His own safety is not in question. Ratchet isn't even sure why he's so certain of this, but he doesn't fear for his plating. His spark, however, is another matter entirely.  
  
Ratchet programs the ground bridge for the given coordinates and turns away from the console. He will probably need more than what he is carrying on his frame though he refuses to exhaust any of the supplies necessary for the Autobots. He will not shorthand his family for the sake of a neutral no matter what his medical programming demands.  
  
By the time Bumblebee returns, Ratchet has all that he needs and is ready to go. He doesn't offer the scout much of an explanation, powering up the ground bridge before Bumblebee has a chance to so much as shift to root mode.  
  
A series of tones follows after him, Bumblebee's curiosity overriding the sounds of transformation.  
  
“Out,” Ratchet replies, shifting into alt-mode. “I'll be back soon. Don't you dare disturb Optimus' defrag.”  
  
He guns his engine and heads for the swirling energies of the bridge, feeling Bumblebee's optics on him. His comms buzz with the scout's attempt to contact him, but Ratchet rebuffs him, citing that it's nothing for Bumblebee to be concerned about. He'll be back in an hour, maybe less.  
  
After all, he can't very well inform Bumblebee that he's leaving to meet with Starscream.  
  


o0o0o

  
  
The ground bridge deposits Ratchet in the middle of nowhere, or at least that is how it appears to his optics and scanners. He feels he should recognize this location. The coordinates were somewhat familiar to the system.  
  
There's nothing around but rocks and dirt. There are very few organic life signs and certainly no humans.  
  
Deeming it safe enough, Ratchet shifts back to root mode, scanning his surroundings for evidence of Cybertronian activity. More specifically, Starscream.  
  
Ratchet's sensors pick up a Cybertronian signal the very same moment Starscream's vocals purr across the open landscape.  
  
“I am rather surprised you came, medic.”  
  
He turns, finding the aforementioned aerial standing at the top of a huge jut of rock, looking down on Ratchet. “You don't look injured to me,” Ratchet retorts.  
  
Starscream smirks, visible even across the distance, and leaps down, motions still graceful though it would have been more so had he been able to transform. “Some wounds are not on the surface.” A long, tapered finger taps his chestplate. “Missing internals are such a wound.”  
  
“Is that why you summoned me here?”  
  
“Among other things.” Starscream inclines his helm and gestures with one hand to a bend in the narrow path. “Shall I invite you into my humble abode?”  
  
Ratchet doesn't move. He has fixed the Seeker twice and yes, both times were accompanied by interfaces he didn't intend but couldn't seem to resist anyway. That doesn’t mean he trusts Starscream any further than he can throw the aerial.  
  
“You can try, but I want answers first.”  
  
Starscream ex-vents and rolls his optics. “If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not be in plain sight for long. Soundwave, as we all know, has optics everywhere.”  
  
He has a valid point. Ratchet still doesn't move. He crosses his arms and stares at the Seeker. If it comes down to it, Ratchet can contact Bumblebee, ask for a ground bridge, and be gone before any Decepticon, even Soundwave, can do a thing about it. Starscream doesn't have that luxury (Ratchet assumes) so if anyone is going to bend, it'll be the former Decepticon.  
  
He watches as Starscream waits impatiently, wings giving several twitches of agitation that Ratchet suspects Starscream doesn't even know he's displaying.  
  
“Fine,” Starscream finally grits out with a little stomp of his pede that Ratchet swears is better suited to Miko. “It should come as no surprise to you but I am still in need of a medic and as you're the only one around, you're the one I contacted.”  
  
Ratchet arches an orbital ridge. “There's always Knock Out.”  
  
“Ha, ha.” Starscream flicks a hand dismissively. “If I wanted to be dissected for the Pit of it I'd just turn myself over to Megatron. At least he'd make it quick.”  
  
Which speaks way more of Decepticon politics than Ratchet ever wants to know.  
  
“I repeat, you don't look injured to me.”  
  
“I _am_ still missing a T-cog,” Starscream hisses through gritted denta, wings giving a flick of irritation. Ratchet doesn't miss, either, the way he glances at the sky.  
  
“You do know that I can't just build you another one.”  
  
Starscream throws his hands into the air, turning on a heel and stalking toward the bend in the mountain path. “I'm well aware of that, medic. I need an installation not a reconstruction!”  
  
Starscream doesn't stop, leaving Ratchet either the choice to follow or call for a ground bridge.  
  
He follows, curiosity compelling him along with the knowledge that if he discovers Starscream's bolthole, it can be a point in the Autobot's favor. At least they'll be able to keep an optic on the self-proclaimed neutral.  
  
“You retrieved your T-cog?” Ratchet asks.  
  
“Something like that,” Starscream hedges, and tosses a glance over his shoulder, one that Ratchet can't quite interpret. “But it appears that it isn't simply a matter of clicking back into place.”  
  
Ratchet ex-vents noisily. “Of course it isn't, you dolt. That's a delicate piece of biomechanics! An integral unit of your core internals! It's not a... a... spark plug!”  
  
Starscream pauses, optics cycling in and out. “Spark plug?”  
  
“Never mind.” Ratchet increases his pace, pedes a noisy stomp on the ground and stirring up dust in his wake. “Where the frag are we going?”  
  
“You're going to fix me then?”  
  
“I didn't say that.”  
  
They round the corner and it doesn't take a genius to figure out where Starscream's been hiding himself. The aft-end of a crashed Cybertronian spacecraft is visible as it juts from the side of a cliff, rocky debris and years of rust concealing it from prying human eyes. It helps, Ratchet supposes, that this area is barren and desolate. He imagines that few humans wander this way in the first place.  
  
“Is that...?” He seems to remember Optimus and the others battling against Airachnid in an area similar to this.  
  
Starscream makes a prideful noise. “The Harbinger, yes. And if you don't mind keeping that information from Megatron, my plating will thank you.”  
  
At least this near-treasonous meeting isn't a complete waste of time then. This knowledge, if nothing else, will prove valuable.  
  
Ratchet follows Starscream into the crashed ship, the aged metal creaking and groaning with their weight. There's barely any lighting and it lacks the reassuring sounds of an active ship. No humming systems, no thrumming metal. Nothing. It's rather disconcerting. How does Starscream take the silence?  
  
“How did you find another T-cog?” Ratchet asks, and he despises the way his vocalizer echoes. Every darkened room he passes, doors wrenched open by unknown forces, worsens the eerie sensation that crawls up his backstrut.  
  
This place doesn't feel like a home. It better resembles a tomb. Surely Decepticons must have perished in here. Where are their frames?  
  
Ratchet's suspicions take a dark turn. Surely Starscream wouldn't be so desperate as to attempt transfusing a t-cog from a frame that's been offline for so long? The chances of it poisoning his systems are far, far higher than the negligible chance it might take.  
  
“Does it matter?” Starscream steps down another corridor and heads straight toward a door that, also, has been forced open. Here there is actual lighting and Ratchet can tell at a glance that Starscream spends most of his online hours in this room.  
  
There is evidence of habitation. A makeshift berth in one corner. A pitiful stockpile of energon that is in no way enough to support a Seeker's energy needs. A workstation complete with console, monitor, and next to it, a table stacked with various tools, some which make Ratchet's fingers itch.  
  
Real Cybertronian tech. Not this slapped together, half-afted human stuff he's been having to augment for his own use. That, right there, is a genuine laser scalpel, better than what Ratchet carries on his frame and more suited to the delicate work. He could finally fix Prime's fragged knee joint if he could get his hands on that!  
  
A low chuckle spills into the room. “If I'd known showing you my toys was all it would take, I would have done so sooner.”  
  
Ratchet shifts his attention to the Seeker, who's smirking at him, leaning with all-too-casual comfort against the console. “I've not agreed to anything.”  
  
“Why not?” Starscream makes a vague gesture, his optics gleaming a pale red that speaks of barely restrained devilry. “It's a fair trade. We've done so before.”  
  
“Before I gave you minor repairs and you gave us some minor intel,” Ratchet retorts, facing Starscream completely. “This is different. This is...”  
  
Not a good idea, his processor supplies for him. Starscream's injuries aren't causing him any immediate danger. He's not in any pain. It's mostly his pride that's taken a beating. And well, perhaps it's no fun for a Seeker to be grounded, but he's not suffering.  
  
Can Ratchet, in good conscience, fix Starscream? They're still enemies of a sort. Even if Starscream claims to be neutral. It just means he'll attack humans, Autobots, and Decepticons alike. Starscream may be alone but he's hardly helpless. Or harmless.  
  
Starscream leans one hand against the console, wings pressing flat against his back, betraying his growing ire. “It's what exactly? All I want is to be able to transform.”  
  
“So you can be a threat to the Autobots again?” Ratchet shakes his helm sharply, energy field pulsing out with the guilt he can't quite contain. “Nothing is worth that price.”  
  
There has to be a line, Ratchet tells himself. He can fantasize and play games with the Seeker all he wants, but to do something that might actively harm his fellow Autobots, or he supposes, their treaty with the humans... he can't do that.  
  
Would Optimus feel differently? Would he argue to help Starscream in hopes that it might somehow endear the Seeker toward them? Ratchet doesn't know and he doesn't dare comm his Prime to ask.  
  
Starscream grinds several gears in disgust. “And here I thought your vows as a medic meant something to you.”  
  
Ratchet frowns. “If you wanted to manipulate me, you'll have to try harder.”  
  
“You mean like this?” Starscream inclines his helm, a conniving gleam to his optics as he drags one hand down his chassis, talons scraping along his cockpit.  
  
Ratchet's systems lurch, heat blooming in the wake of the seductive sight.  
  
He whirls on a pede, making for the door. He'd kept track of the twisting path Starscream had taken to get them here, so he's quite sure he can find his own way out. Like the Pit he's going to let Starscream make a fool out of him.  
  
“Pretending you don't want me is pointless, medic,” Starscream calls after him, his vocals bearing too much smugness to give Ratchet pause.  
  
“Of course it is. But that doesn't mean I'm going to help you.”  
  
“And when Megatron comes, how will I defend myself?”  
  
Ratchet pauses, just in the doorway, staring out into the long, dark hallway. “You seem to be surviving all right.” Not that he'd call this much of a survival. Alone. Barely energized. Surrounded by threats.  
  
Starscream snorts disdain. “Survival. Yes, that's all it is. Until Megatron stops obsessing over Prime long enough to logic out my location and make it his priority to _end_ me.”  
  
One hand on the door frame, Ratchet turns, just enough to see Starscream hasn't moved, still standing by the console, but he's no longer trying to seduce. There's a distinctly desperate edge to Starscream's energy field, felt even from here, that's wreaking havoc on Ratchet's determination to walk the frag out and never look back.  
  
Guilt of a different sort rears its ugly helm.  
  
“I never thought I'd see you, of all mechs, afraid.”  
  
Starscream's gaze darts away, focusing instead on his pitiful stockpile of energon. “I have no weapons or the ability to fly. Caution is to be expected,” he grits out. Not admitting, no never admitting, to the fear.  
  
Frag it all to the Pit.  
  
He should have kept walking.  
  
“What would you do?” Ratchet demands.  
  
Starscream cycles his optics, startled. “Do?”  
  
Ratchet turns back into the room, away from the dark, silent corridor and the echoes of dead mechs. “Say I install whatever T-cog you think is going to fit. What happens next?”  
  
“I'm not going to join the Autobots.”  
  
“Perish the thought. We have enough problems without adding a former Decepticon to the mix!” Wheeljack, honestly, is enough of a loose cannon already.  
  
Starscream looks away and even across the room, Ratchet can feel his energy field, twitchy and rattled. “Megatron is not fit to be leader of the Decepticons.”  
  
Ratchet huffs. “Tell me something I don't know. Like how you expect to change that.”  
  
“I'll think of something.”  
  
“Where have I seen that before?” Ratchet rolls his optics. “Oh, yes. Right before he tried to offline you. Nearly succeeded, if you ask my professional opinion.”  
  
The twitch that races through Starscream's frame is highly visible in his wings, but everywhere else as well.  
  
The Seeker's helm dips, vocals turning cold. “If you're not going to help then leave. I'm done being insulted.”  
  
Ratchet folds his arms over his chestplate. “You should be used to that by now.”  
  
Starscream snarls. “You are a poor excuse for an Autobot.” His right arm twitches, the sound of weapons systems engaging all too loud in the still silence. “Get out of here before I waste my last missile.”  
  
He should do as Starscream demands. But Ratchet finds himself hesitating.  
  
Starscream is a threat. But if Ratchet leaves the aerial like this, practically defenseless and on his last circuit, would Ratchet be any better than the Decepticons?  
  
Yet, he's also long believed that the war's length has been due, in part, to Autobot sentimentality.  
  
Cybertron is dead. Its inhabitants – former and current – are few.  
  
Technically, Starscream is a Neutral. A Neutral who used to be a Decepticon who has killed a lot of mechs, just recently one of Ratchet's very own team. Cliffjumper's loss is keenly felt by every one of them.  
  
The humans will be in danger.  
  
Why is Ratchet hesitating?  
  
Because of Optimus and the Autobots? Or is there a deeper motive, one he doesn't dare name, that traces its origins to a lingering attraction, fascination, and a developing affection that has no place in this war.  
  
Ratchet's optics trace the quivering lines of Starscream's plating, reading easily the fatigue in the Seeker's stance, the lack of quality energon in the waver of those beautiful wings. He notices places where armor is dented, paint scratched. The scar on Starscream's faceplate hasn't sealed and by now, it won't.  
  
Starscream is in a precarious position right now, hunted by Autobot and Decepticon alike. And he still asked Ratchet to come despite knowing how dangerous that could be.  
  
It's the near-trust in that action that almost breaks him.  
  
“Is that all the medical equipment you have?” Ratchet asks, a tired sort of lilt to his vocals as he points at the table piled with tools.  
  
Starscream gives him a startled look, speechless for perhaps the first time Ratchet has ever seen the Seeker. “The-- There's half a medbay left.”  
  
Ratchet turns toward the door, surprising himself with his own determination. “It'll do. I'll take what I want and we can call it even.” At least, that is the excuse he is going to give, conveniently ignoring any other reason that might present itself.  
  
He doesn't have to look to know that Starscream has followed him. He can hear the rasp of the Seeker's pedes against the dusty and debris-strewn floor.  
  
The corridor is dark, but there are occasional lights here and there to indicate that a hallway is indeed present. Ratchet wonders if Starscream placed them there himself or if some vestige of the Harbinger's emergency power is still active.  
  
“You changed your mind,” Starscream says, his voice echoing hollowly. “Why?”  
  
Ratchet doesn't care to answer that question, at least not honestly. “Does it matter?”  
  
Even without his T-cog and the ability to transform, Starscream is fast.  
  
He catches up to Ratchet in a burst of speed, taloned hand hooking on Ratchet's shoulder and spinning him around too quickly for the medic to do much more than let out a startled cry as his back slams into the rusty wall. Static electricity crawls between his plating and Starscream's servo as Decepticon red optics bleed confusion and bafflement at him.  
  
“What game are you playing, Autobot?” Starscream demands, leaning close, trying for intimidation despite the fact Ratchet has both height and weight on him.  
  
Ratchet bats away the Seeker's arm, pushing himself away from both wall and aerial. “I should ask you the same thing.” His spark is an excited whirl in his chassis, systems pinging him as if urging him to Look! and Notice! the hot-aft Seeker within arm's reach. “Where's this medbay?”  
  
Starscream gives him a long, measured look. Ratchet can hear him ventilating, soft but rapid pulses. There's a wildness in Starscream's energy field that doesn't speak well of his state of processor. Then again, Starscream's been on his own for quite some time and Cybertronians don't take isolation well.  
  
“It's down a deck,” Starscream finally says. “We'll have to take the stairs.”  
  
“Lead the way.”  
  
Suspicion leaks from Starscream's energy field but he turns on a high pede and does as Ratchet asks.  
  
They walk in silence. Starscream leads; Ratchet follows. The only noise to break the unnatural stillness is that of their ventilations and their pedes crackling on debris. Ratchet kicks a piece of crumpled metal in the dark. He doesn't look too closely at it.  
  
He lifts a hand, brushing fingers over his shoulder where Starscream had touched him. He can yet feel the prickle of static against his armor.  
  
Frag it all.  
  
Starscream, at least, is no liar.  
  
One deck down, around a curved hallway and through a pair of double doors that have been forced open lies half of a medbay. The other half of it has been sheared off by the mountainside, rubble littering the floor and crushing most of the visible equipment. There is, at least, a functional berth and more tools than Ratchet has back at the base. For all that the medbay is in ruins, it's better stocked than Ratchet.  
  
Ratchet quickly takes stock. Everything he needs for the installation is either attached to his frame or present in this room. Thankfully.  
  
“Get on the berth.”  
  
Starscream snorts. “I suppose you save the charming bedside manner for the patients you like.”  
  
“You wouldn't like me nice,” Ratchet retorts as the Seeker hops onto the berth, reclining upon it as though he hasn't a care in the world. “T-cog?”  
  
Said item is fished from Starscream's subspace and handed to Ratchet with less flair than he could have expected. It gleams shiny-new in the jury-rigged lights of the medbay, which Starscream must have set up himself.  
  
Ratchet cycles his optics, peering closer at the metals and connectors of the T-cog. It appears hardly used, in fact, closer to new, right off the assembly line.  
  
“Where--”  
  
“Are you going to install it or ask questions?” Starscream snaps before he can so much as get another word out.  
  
Ratchet scowls, hooking a mobile tray and dragging it closer, laying the T-cog upon it. “You do realize you'll have to be in stasis for this.” It's going to hurt like the Pit otherwise.  
  
“Fine.” Starscream thrusts an arm out at Ratchet, popping the latch covering a medical interface panel. No hesitation.  
  
Ratchet doesn't know if that show of trust should worry or reassure him. He quickly shores up his firewalls and withdraws a cable, only to hesitate again.  
  
He can't decide if he's doing the right thing, making a huge mistake, or thinking with the wrong processing unit.  
  
“Well?”  
  
Starscream's impatient tones cut through Ratchet's wavering. He plugs into the Seeker, gratified when Starscream lights up a path straight to where Ratchet needs to be. No searching, no sidetracking.  
  
Ratchet activates manual stasis, noting that Starscream's optics droop to half-mast almost immediately. There's an inherent trust in this that Ratchet fears examining too closely.  
  
That Starscream would call him in the first place. That Starscream would ask for an invasive surgery. That he'd relent to manual stasis.  
  
Is it Ratchet himself that Starscream trusts? Or is it the implied soft-sparked nature of the symbol Ratchet wears on his chassis?  
  
He watches as Starscream shifts into stasis, optics shuttered, frame limp on the medberth. The silence is all too pressing.  
  
Ratchet gets to work. This, at least, is simple. He understands repairs. Working with his hands makes sense.  
  
Everything else just turns his processor upside down.  
  
He ex-vents softly and pops open Starscream's chassis, staying med-linked to Starscream's systems since he doesn't have an active console to monitor Starscream's vitals.  
  
It would be so easy, Ratchet thinks, to end the threat here and now. Quick and painless, Starscream won't even see his end coming. It would be almost merciful.  
  
Ratchet could do it. His right hand is on a critical energon line, one that he knows feeds to Starscream's spark chamber. A careless tug, an accident to untrained optics, and the war would be less one mouthy, skilled, and dangerous Seeker.  
  
He can't do it.  
  
Ratchet doesn't dare examine all the reasons why because he knows, to his very spark, that the real justification is a betrayal. To himself. To the Autobots. To everything.  
  
He releases Starscream's energon line and focuses on the task set before him.  
  
The T-cog is a perfect match to Starscream's internals, scarily so. Had Starscream somehow managed to retrieve his own?  
  
But no. This one shows little sign of wear. It's a bit scratched around the connectors, one end a tad warped, but for the most part, it's still assembly-line fresh. Starscream should have no difficulty integrating the unit into his systems.  
  
Ratchet closes up the Seeker's chassis. He sets Starscream's stasis to end in ten minutes, enough time for Starscream's processor to at least begin recognizing the T-cog, and disengages from Starscream's systems.  
  
He pokes around the half-medbay, picking out several tools that are transportable and that the Autobots could use, while he waits for Starscream to online.  
  
When his comm activates, Ratchet nearly leaps out of his plating.  
  
 _Ratchet._  
  
It's Optimus. Frag. The last mech that Ratchet wanted to speak to at the moment. He thought he'd have enough time to get back to the base before Optimus stirred from recharge.  
  
 _You should be resting_ , Ratchet replies, tucking several pieces of equipment into his subspace.  
  
He glances at Starscream. There's another few minutes before the Seeker will online. Perhaps it's better this way.  
  
Ratchet leaves the half-medbay, backtracking to the exit, ignoring the crawling sensation that lingers on his armor. He still doesn't like the static silence of the _Harbinger_. He doesn't know how Starscream endures it.  
  
Maybe because Starscream has no other choice.  
  
 _What is your location?_ Optimus asks.  
  
Ratchet in-vents and ex-vents carefully. _I'm returning now, Prime.  
  
That doesn't answer my question._ Optimus' comm is not quite impatient or rebuking, but there's a hint of something in his words that makes Ratchet's spark twist in on itself from sheer guilt.  
  
Ratchet sighs, a reaction which proves he has been spending far too much time around the children, and finally exits the _Harbinger_ , stepping into the dull grey afternoon.  
  
 _I'm sending my coordinates now_ , Ratchet replies and waits, unsurprised when the ground bridge swirls to life in front of him.  
  
He doesn't look back as he steps through, though by now Starscream must be online. He's probably checking Ratchet's work, confirming the presence of his T-cog. No doubt he's already tried to shift forms, impatient Seeker that he is. And then he's probably cursing because it'll be at least a day before the T-cog fully integrates.  
  
No. Ratchet doesn't look back. He doesn't have to.  
  
He steps into the ground bridge and arrives back at Autobot Headquarters, expecting to see Prime's expression of Disappointment and Disapproval. Instead, he's greeted by every member of their team, children included, and Ratchet half-expects Fowler to be looming in the background, hands on his hips and a frown on his lips.  
  
And yes, Optimus is indeed giving him the Look.  
  
Guilt rises up, swamping through Ratchet's energy field before he can pin it back. The ground bridge closes behind him, sealing off his avenue of escape. Not that Ratchet is thinking of fleeing or anything.  
  
“Ratchet,” Optimus says as Arcee, Bulkhead, and Bumblebee all crowd around him. “Why were you near the _Harbinger_?”  
  
Of course Prime would recognize the coordinates. He still is, at spark, a database mech. It's a simple matter for him to remember such paltry details as important coordinates.  
  
Ratchet considers a lie for all of a nano-klik. One forms at the back of his processor. His glossa twitches. But no.  
  
“Because that is where Starscream is hiding.”  
  
“The frag?” Arcee shouts, optics spiraling wide.  
  
“You've got to be kidding me,” Jack says.  
  
Miko makes some kind of noise that Ratchet doesn't interpret. Raf says nothing, but his jaw drops. Bumblebee's doorwings droop, his vocalizer emitting a mournful tri-tone.  
  
“I knew it,” Bulkhead mutters.  
  
Prime is the only one who doesn't visibly display surprise. Instead, he inclines his helm, his gaze all-too-knowing. “His request?”  
  
“Installation of a T-cog.”  
  
More murmurs from their fellow Autobots but Ratchet ignores them for the moment. Right now, Optimus' reaction concerns him more.  
  
“His offer?”  
  
Ratchet reaches into his subspace. “Equipment,” he answers and pulls out several items, all of which they are in desperate need of. He can fix Optimus' knee joint now. And Bulkhead's glitched stabilizer. Arcee's blaster. Though it pains him that there is still nothing he can do for Bumblebee's vocalizer.  
  
“You actually fixed him?” Arcee demands, her voice an echoing shout in the main room as she takes a step forward. “That backstabbing, murdering--”  
  
“We need these tools,” Ratchet insists, defending himself, his choice, all the while knowing all the other, underlying reasons. “I can't keep everyone alive with this human tech. It's impossible! What kind of miracle worker do you think I am? I--”  
  
Prime's hand lands on his shoulder and Ratchet goes silent, the sound of his overworked cooling fans a testament to the tattered control he has on his emotions. His energy field betrays him, and Ratchet knows it.  
  
He clenches his hands into fists, looking away from Optimus' optics.  
  
“I am not a complete fool, Optimus,” Ratchet says, pitched lower but nevertheless audible to everyone in the room. “I left behind a few countermeasures.”  
  
He's a traitor twice in one day. Practically a record if you ask him.  
  
“Countermeasures?” Bulkhead repeats, surprisingly the least bristly Autobot in the room. Then again, he'd been there both the first and the second time Ratchet had fixed Starscream.  
  
Maybe Ratchet hasn't been as discreet in scrubbing off the paint transfers as he thought.  
  
“If it comes down to it, I can short out the T-cog. It won't offline him but...” Ratchet trails off, leaving the rest to their imagination.  
  
Silence descends with his revelation. Ratchet doesn't know what shames him more, that he's been all but a traitor to the Autobots, or that he took advantage of the miniscule trust that Starscream had given him.  
  
“Autobots, please escort the children home.”  
  
The protests are expected, but are also token at best. In the end, none of them disobey their Prime and the three snatch up their respective charges and flee the base.  
  
Ratchet feels the weight of their stares, but Optimus' is heaviest. Yet, the Prime does not speak until they are alone in the base, the silence telling and reminding Ratchet, in that moment, of the dead hush of the _Harbinger_.  
  
“You did not take backup,” Optimus finally states, his hand sliding from Ratchet's shoulders. “You thought it unnecessary.”  
  
The why is unasked, but Ratchet hears it nonetheless.  
  
His frame slumps as he lifts his helm. “The punishment for fraternization has always been immediate offlining,” Ratchet says, alarmed by the rasp in his vocalizer.  
  
“Cybertron is dead,” Optimus replies, as though Ratchet could have forgotten this painful fact. “As are the mechs who made those rules. Do you intend to continue?”  
  
Ratchet shakes his helm. “I never intended to start.”  
  
“Mmm.” There's a distant look to Optimus' optics, the way they seem to measure the air above Ratchet's helm, as though he's seeing something – someone perhaps – else. “It has become clear to me that there is no hope for redemption in Megatron. But that doesn't mean we should discard the possibility for other Decepticons.”  
  
Ratchet's vocalizer refuses to work. Try as he might to find the right words, he doesn't know where to begin. Apologies are a must as a matter of course. But afterward...?  
  
Optimus' gaze drops back down and he rubs a palm down his faceplate. “You will be confined to base for three Earth months,” he says, his tones brooking no argument, not that Ratchet will give any. “You will not accept contact from Starscream without another Autobot present. Understood?”  
  
“Yes, Prime.” It's practically a slap on the wrist and that, for some reason, feels harsher than a more severe punishment.  
  
Optimus sighs, the heavy ex-vent of a mech carrying the weight of a planet on his shoulders, and Ratchet's guilt thickens. “It is my sincere hope that one day we Autobots and Decepticons can be one people again. Until then, we do what we must.”  
  
Ratchet's helm dips. He cannot meet his Prime's optics. He feels the rebuke in Optimus' words, but also, the understanding. He can't decide which is worse.  
  
“Thank you, Prime.”  
  
He can say nothing else. Does, in fact, keep his mouth closed and his energy field drawn back tightly to his frame.  
  
Ratchet flees to the relative privacy of his medcorner. The silence wraps around him as he stares at the makeshift berth, the collection of slapped-together tools and half-completed projects.  
  
He pulls out the equipment he's swiped from the _Harbinger_ , most of it stuff Starscream couldn't have made use of anyway. He can save lives with these things. He can restore his team to an almost full functioning. He can be prepared for the inevitable clash with the Decepticons.  
  
Ratchet doesn't know if they are worth the betrayal.  
  
He closes his optics, guilt hammering at his spark.  
  
He doesn't know if any of it was worth the price.  
  


***


End file.
